A stook is a circular or rounded arrangement of swathes of cut grain stalks placed on the ground in a field. ThoughtStook.com is a collection of swathes of ideas including, culture, politics, technology, philosophy and theology; designed to provide answers that you may be looking for or to provoke your own thoughts.
23rd
JAN
Library of Congress Photo Collection at Flickr
Posted by Jonathan | Filed under Culture, Gallery, Photos, Websites
Library of Congress Blog » My Friend Flickr: A Match Made in Photo Heaven (Library of Congress)
The Library of Congress has partnered with Flickr to pilot a LOC Gallery of uncopyrighted photos that have been collected through the ages. They currently are piloting a 1910’s set with 1500 photos, and a 1930’s-40′ in color set with 1615 photos. Just in these two collections there are some amazing photos.
Click for the next page for two more photos.
Popularity: 99% [?]
19th
JAN
Watch TV Online with Fancast
Posted by Jonathan | Filed under Culture, TV, Video, Websites
Back on November 17th, I told you about watching network television over the internet through the various network television websites. Well now you can go to one location for not only network tv, but for cable tv as well.
Comcast Cable recently put Fancast beta online, not only for their subscribers, but for anyone browsing the internet. According to Comcast Interactive Media (CIM)
“Fancast is the first online destination that enables users to watch, manage and find entertainment content wherever it is available – on Fancast, on television, online on DVD or in theaters. On Fancast, users can view an expanding library of free full episodes and clips from top networks and movie partners, find the content they are looking for across multiple platforms and create a personalized entertainment experience.”
5th
JAN
American Gladiators
Posted by Jonathan | Filed under Culture, TV
If you are a fan of outrageous television you will be excited to learn that NBC is reviving their American Gladiator series. American Gladiators originally aired from 1989-96 and featured muscle bulging gladiators named Nitro, Malibu, Zap, Sunny, Lace, and Gemini squaring off against firefighters, police officers, ex-millitary and average Joe’s that think they can best the gladiators in physical events. Here’s the intro to the retired series:
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
5th
The Gratification of a Resolution
Posted by Jonathan | Filed under Culture
Well, I’m only 5 days late to say Happy New Years to everyone. The holidays have been a whirlwind of events with 3 different Christmas celebrations, a visit from my Dad to meet his grandson for the first time, a New Years party and a new job. It’s been an exciting 2 weeks.
Now that the new year is upon us it’s time for everyone to make their resolutions for change. Resolutions have become a joke in our American culture. Instead of a list of goals we wish to achieve, the majority of people see them as a list of the first things to fail on in the new year. I think this view of resolutions is based on many factors, but on in particular is our view that we have to achieve these goals immediately. Our society wants instant gratification in whatever it does and resolutions are now different.
Tags: Culture, New Year, Resolutions
24th
DEC
Silent Night!
Posted by Jonathan | Filed under Culture, Religion
I didn’t know what to write for my Christmas post, but I finally had an inspiration and offer this post as my gift to all.
19th
DEC
Juxtaprose
Posted by AdamT | Filed under Culture
It is gauche to celebrate how much you make.
It is gauche to lament how little you make.
I agree with the two statements seperately.
But I am not sure I agree with the implied conclusion of this juxtaprose.
How about you?
Popularity: 10% [?]
Tags: juxtaprose
13th
DEC
Santa’s Swag
Posted by AdamT | Filed under Culture
I decided to follow up the lighter post of a few days ago with a list of gifts and observations that I have compiled in the last year or two of gift giving. Currently my wife and I are limited on financial resources so most gifts here will put more emphasis on the thought process and be under $40 (my how times have changed).
Three notes about giving gifts that apply to close relatives and office workers alike:
- Kosher - It is imperative that you consider the person whom you are giving the gift. Do they have allergies, what are their styles, what do they enjoy. I find many things cool (especially tech gifts) but they would be horrible gifts to some other people (especially to anyone over 50). Once again, it depends on what the recipient enjoys and can use, not what you like or think is cool or useful.
5th
DEC
The Anti-Hero and The Indifferent Narrator
Posted by AdamT | Filed under Culture, Philosophy
My wife and I sat down with our daughter (2) to enjoy a cartoon. Our daughter was excited by the potential of watching Caillou, which she had seen months back on PBS.
We were surprised to find that we were commenting on Caillou and his behaviour to such a point that it became a chore to watch the cartoon. The issues we found appear to be prevalent in media today: the anti-hero and the indifferent narrator.
The anti-hero:
Caillou, as with a lot of cartoons (which appear to made for adults), is more descriptive than prescriptive in terms of his behaviour. By this I mean the writers seem to relish their portrayal of him as a selfish and self absorbed child. While this may be the norm for kids his age, Caillou is a cartoon and not a child. It seems the irony of depicting a child with a tragic flaw and ignoring the tragic element escapes the writers.
The indifferent narrator:
Further reinforcing the notion that Caillou is descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive) is the narrator who interrupts only to state the fact of what has happened. My wife and I did not expect to find a good moral prescription from the narrator; but by merely stating that Caillou is “unhappy that he has to share”, without a note of reproof, the narrator avoids any semblance of a behavioural norm. It is as if the writers see Caillou’s behavior as unavoidable, or at least unaddressable.
Perhaps it is not PBS responsibility to provide a moral grounding for children. Perhaps they think morality to be a cultural preference. But the least they could do is pragmatically reinforce behaviour that will take the child farther in life than tantrums and selfishness.
Tags: anti-hero, Caillou, PBS Cartoon
2nd
DEC
Important!!!! This is not a joke.
Posted by Jonathan | Filed under Culture, E-mail, Technology
Have you received an e-mail with the above message in the subject line? I did recently and I opened it to find a warning about a phone scam that lures callers into calling certain phone numbers that look like regular U.S. area codes, but in fact they are redirect area codes to the British Virgin Islands, Dominican Republic and Jamaica. The result is that the individual is charged $2400 a minute with a final bill in the 10’s of thousands of dollars. The e-mail appears to be signed by an AT&T Field Service Manager along with a contact phone number, and is accompanied with a link to AT&T’s website describing the scam. So I decided to check out the e-mail’s claim.
I followed the link in the e-mail http://www.consumer.att.com/consumertips/areacode.html which redirected me to http://www.att.com/gen/landing-pages?pid=6456&DCMP=att_safety . The link is a legitimate AT&T webpage. I then proceeded to follow another link describing the scam. AT&T describes the scam this way,
17th
NOV
Net…(work) TV
Posted by Jonathan | Filed under Culture, Websites
This September, Nikki and I started watching NBC’s “The Office” starting with season 1 which we rented from Netflix. We zipped through the first 3 seasons and were left wanting…. You see we don’t have a tv to watch the new episodes as they air. So all we had was the anticipation of season 4 on dvd in 1 year. However, the idea popped into my head that maybe in our new fangled age of the internet maybe they aired the episodes online. I was in luck. NBC Video Rewind allows fans watch most of their shows repeatedly online using a flash player. And without most of the annoying advertisements. They do typically advertise one product per episode during the regularly scheduled break. It’s typically 30 secs and can be muted. You can also resize the player inside your browser to normal, large or full screen. However, the full screen option typically locks up my entire system and forces me to close my browser and reload the page.
Stooked Thoughts
Categories
Now Reading
Planned books:
- There is More to the Secret by Ed Gungor
- Making Your Money Count by Kenneth C. Ulmer
Current books:
-
Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications by D. A. Carson
-
Lord, Teach Me to Study the Bible in 28 Days by Kay Arthur
Recent books:
None